Rosalind Franklin: Double Helix Without Credit

1 . Introduction
Behind one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century—the structure of DNA—stands a woman whose name was overshadowed by the glory of others. Rosalind Franklin, an English crystallographer, captured the famous “Photo 51” with her X-ray camera, a key piece in deciphering the double helix that defines life itself. However, her contribution was ignored in the official narrative, its recognition given to men, leaving Franklin relegated to a footnote in the history of science. Traditional history omitted her.

With this essay, I seek to restore her to the honor that always belonged to her. I aim to rewrite the traditional narrative and present her for what she was: a brilliant mind with the determination to challenge the barriers of her time, and to question what is lost when science forgets its heroines.

2. Who was Rosalind Franklin?
Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) was born into a wealthy Jewish family. From a very early age, she demonstrated excellence in various subjects, including science. Around the age of fifteen, she decided to pursue a university degree, passing the entrance exam to Newnham College, Cambridge. This decision stirred controversy in her family, as her father frowned upon university studies for women. However, both her aunt and mother supported her in this endeavor, and in 1941 she earned her university degree. During the height of World War II, in 1942, she obtained a position as an assistant in a British organization dedicated to research on coal and its derivatives. Her studies later served as a basis for the manufacture of gas masks. In 1945 she obtained her PhD in Physical Chemistry and a year later she moved to Paris to work at the Central Laboratory of State Chemical Services, learning how to use X-ray diffraction techniques in crystals, which would later be vital for obtaining and interpreting the well-known "Photograph 51". From the beginning of her story, she showed her true colors: a woman who stood out in a male-dominated field who would change modern science forever.

3. Photograph 51
On an X-ray plate, hidden among shadows and patterns, Rosalind Franklin captured one of the most important images in the history of biology: the famous Photo 51. Photo 51 was an x-ray photograph which demonstrated the double helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid: the molecule containing the genetic information for the development of all living organisms. While the small image is barely 10 centimeters per side, its value and legacy is unmeasurable.

After Franklin’s death in 1958, James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the structure of DNA, specifically the double helix structure. Rosalind wasn't mentioned as a collaborator, nor as a co-winner of said prize. Nothing. With sexism in science prominent at the time, the power dynamics present in the laboratory where she worked, and the way James Watson presented the discovery to the scientific community, Rosalind was left in the shadows of the light that her brilliant work originated.

3. Conclusion & Reflection
Science has had female authors in its pages since the beginning. How many brilliant women have been silenced? Or, like Franklin’s case, the glory of her achievements was stolen and the recognition negated? Rosalind’s story reminds us of the importance of history being written and taught by all points of view, giving the deserving recognition to those who, with their hard work and intelligence, knitted a bit of the mantle that recognizes each one of us, past, present and future, as humanity. It is vital to promote spaces for women in STEM, in order to educate, promote and recognize our next Rosalind Franklin.